The Smoking Ban -- Phase Two

Chris. Is that Jeff's new room opening in Cornelius? I may need to check it out myself.

Nature Boy...where are you from?

Steve
 
Randolph's is a Sunday or Saturday tournament? 130 players? Wow!

I'm not far away, I will have to come and check those out.

Randolph's is the Sunday tourney. It's 9 ball, Texas Express, single elimination, starts at 8pm and it is played till the finish so if you're in the finals expect to leave the front door after 6am and I have heard as late as 11am.
 
Randolph's is the Sunday tourney. It's 9 ball, Texas Express, single elimination, starts at 8pm and it is played till the finish so if you're in the finals expect to leave the front door after 6am and I have heard as late as 11am.

So Randolph's is every Sunday and the Newton tournament is next Sunday?
 
Lol

I am goiing outside for a smoke, I will finish posting when I get back .... LOL

As far as backward states, progress is just a matter of opinion in people's minds. I suppose you also believe our national economy is coming out of the recession too, when millions of people have lost their jobs due to OUTSOURCING.

I do not believe that second hand smoke causes Cancer, sorry, but I don't.

I believe a lot of people inherit genes that are prone to get cancer. My grade school principal died of lung cancer, and never smoked a day in his life, or was around it to my knowledge.

Yeah, cigarettes have become the common whipping boy for additional taxes for many states, driving up the price of them. Myself, I switched to cigarette cigars, which are outside of the cigarette taxes, and pay a $1 a pack for them. I have smoked 48 years, and do not plan to quit. My lung x-ray was clear 2 years ago.

The Pool rooms here in Wichita still have smoking, and all of them have adequate ventillation systems.
 
I live in a state that many consider "backwards" (and I kinda agree with oft times) but we've managed quite nicely with the smoking ban for many years now.

As for whether or not second-hand smoke causes cancer, we could agrue that all day. Even if I were to concede that point (which I wouldn't, but for the sake of argument) the layers of smoke in bars and pool halls would keep me out. Where I play now has an exemption, being a private club, but even they finally came around to the way all the public places are handling the issue. When they allowed smoking, I couldn't stay in the pool room for more than an hour without being able to see. And I'd have to take a shower when I got home, and put my clothes in a trash bag until they could get into the laundry.

The hardest part for smokers to understand is that the smell permeates everything after being in a smoke-filled environment. Clothes, hair, skin. Smokers are so used to it that they don't even notice it, is all I can guess. And I don't begrudge smokers being able to smoke, not at all. Your choice, no problem. It's an incredibly difficult habit to break, this I know from many friends and relatives, and I have sympathy for each and every one of you who do try and quit. But I have a choice, too, and I choose not to smell like that just because someone else wishes to indulge in their habit. Play it this way - how often are annoyed when going through some big department store like Macy's, and some girl is out pushing the latest perfume, spraying it all around? I know I'm not interested in having that smell all over me (unless that were due to.... oh never mind :wink:) nor would most of you. It's the same thing.

Best of luck to you folks in North Carolina. Be patient. Places will develop smoking areas, and non-smokers will gladly give you the time you need to go burn one, in exchange for not having to be in the midst of the smoke all night.
 
I've been playing the same pool hall in west Denver for 45 years. For the past couple years, a statewide smoking ban took hold and a few of us oldtimers had some difficulties playing without our nicotine crutch.

Recently one guy has been chewing Nicorette and playing with a fake cigar that lights up when it touches his tongue -- it's a device for actors on stage. But it allows this guy to play the same way he has since childhood, sucking on the tube, fooling around with his fingers, placing it on the table while it still appears to be burning, and then he shoots.

His game is back on track and he's beating the youngsters again. As you've already guessed, the pink-lunged crowd has decided that this behavior can't be tolerated. Why? you ask. Oh, it constitutes harassment, claim the pure-bred youngsters who think Redbull isn't a drug.

What's your call? No air is fouled; no laws are broken. This is about theater and nothing else. If you know pool, you know pool is about theater as much as cueing -- at least in some circles.

Anyone?

They should leave him alone.

What's not right about the revolution against smoking is to realize that it was the thing to do - the cool thing thing to do - until the 1970's at least. Now you have all these addicts basically. I feel sympathy for anyone still hooked on smoking and I'm all for whatever it takes for them to smoke less or quit.

My uncle who is a lifelong smoker (now 80 years old) showed up at our Christmas eve party with a device that emits steam and I guess nicotine too - looks like a cigarette. He started with this because a few months ago he was barely able to breathe and decided to do anything he could to quit. I was proud of him for trying to quit at 80 years old. I don't think he will succeed because his wife still smokes - that's tough.

I quit after 30 years of heavy smoking and I know how hard it is at so many different levels. My wife quit at the same time so we were too busy fighting to smoke. :wink: What eventually worked for me was to abstain long enough so that I lost any urge to smoke. Sadly, it takes many years for the urges to totally go away. Once you feel normal again and get that off your back, to lose any desire to smoke, it's a huge relief.

I wish your friend the best and you too. Whatever it takes for someone to quit or cut back and get healthy again, I'm all for it.

Chris
 
I don't particularly agree with the government telling business owners what their customers can do, but I do like breathing more.

I think a good compromise would be to allow smoking so long as a good exhaust system was installed in the business.

No exhaust system exists that cleans the air well enough to allow smoking in a room without a significantly increased risk to others health, let alone smoke smelling clothes and hair.

I personally love the smoking bans, and am much more apt to go to these places now that they are smoke free. I do not, however, see any problem with someone using a fake cigar to help tame the habit side of things. Sounds like they are just looking for a way to get an edge on him at the table. No reason there should even ba an argument over this one.
 
I've been playing the same pool hall in west Denver for 45 years. For the past couple years, a statewide smoking ban took hold and a few of us oldtimers had some difficulties playing without our nicotine crutch.

Recently one guy has been chewing Nicorette and playing with a fake cigar that lights up when it touches his tongue -- it's a device for actors on stage. But it allows this guy to play the same way he has since childhood, sucking on the tube, fooling around with his fingers, placing it on the table while it still appears to be burning, and then he shoots.

His game is back on track and he's beating the youngsters again. As you've already guessed, the pink-lunged crowd has decided that this behavior can't be tolerated. Why? you ask. Oh, it constitutes harassment, claim the pure-bred youngsters who think Redbull isn't a drug.

What's your call? No air is fouled; no laws are broken. This is about theater and nothing else. If you know pool, you know pool is about theater as much as cueing -- at least in some circles.

Anyone?

I dared Otto ... what's 9BallPaul's excuse today?

LWW
 
Smoking

They should leave him alone.

What's not right about the revolution against smoking is to realize that it was the thing to do - the cool thing thing to do - until the 1970's at least. Now you have all these addicts basically. I feel sympathy for anyone still hooked on smoking and I'm all for whatever it takes for them to smoke less or quit.

My uncle who is a lifelong smoker (now 80 years old) showed up at our Christmas eve party with a device that emits steam and I guess nicotine too - looks like a cigarette. He started with this because a few months ago he was barely able to breathe and decided to do anything he could to quit. I was proud of him for trying to quit at 80 years old. I don't think he will succeed because his wife still smokes - that's tough.

I quit after 30 years of heavy smoking and I know how hard it is at so many different levels. My wife quit at the same time so we were too busy fighting to smoke. :wink: What eventually worked for me was to abstain long enough so that I lost any urge to smoke. Sadly, it takes many years for the urges to totally go away. Once you feel normal again and get that off your back, to lose any desire to smoke, it's a huge relief.

I wish your friend the best and you too. Whatever it takes for someone to quit or cut back and get healthy again, I'm all for it.

Chris

Chris,
You've hit on one of the most important points about quitting smoking. I smoked between two and three back of Marlboro Reds for 27 years and I tried quitting several times and eventually went back to smoking each time. Finally, I woke up one night from a deep sleep and had to take a deep breath of air to feel normal. It was then that I realized I needed to quit smoking. It took a couple of tries with the nicotine patch but the second try stuck and I've been free of smoke for a little over ten years. It took about two years of complete abstinence for the urge to smoke to leave my body and mind. The periods of time that I didn't crave a cigarette increased with each month that I abstained and it is so for each person who decides to quit. :idea:

Unfortunately, a few years ago, I was diagnosed with COPD and since it is incurable I will just have to live with it and eventually die from it, sucking on inhalers a few times a day or worse. I've always been very active, jogging, lifting weights, even playing a few sports and for the most part enjoyed a very healthy life. Lately I haven't wanted to do much of that except for playing pool and I've added a few pounds unintentionally and that doesn't make my condition feel any better.

So now, just when I am in a position to enjoy life, I get to gasp for air for the rest of my life. There's no doubt that my COPD is related to my heavy smoking in my opinion and that of my doctors. I think I knew I had it even before that night I woke up looking for a breath of fresh air. I've just started a little exercise program and it seems to help somewhat, so I plan to continue with that.

I'm not writing this for sympathy and I don't want any pity. I was a stupid fcuck for starting in the first place and only slightly less stupid for not quitting sooner. The ironic thing is I never smoked until I went into the Marine Corps. Isn't that a bad joke?

The bottom line is when I used to smoke, I truly thought there would never be a day that I would wake up and not want and need a cigarette. I enjoyed smoking a lot or at least that's what I convinced myself. The truth is that cigarette smoking is just an addiction. The pleasure that you think you get from it is a perversion. Your body wasn't designed to inhale smoke. It doesn't perform well after it is heavily exposed to smoke for a long period of time. The body is tough and can take a lot of punishment so sometimes people can go long periods of time in abusing their lungs and suffer only mild illnesses and stinky clothes, bad breath and stained teeth. Yeah, it's every person's right to smoke and while there are a few that "seemingly" don't suffer any consequences for smoking an entire lifetime, there are hundreds of thousands who suffer from pulmonary illnesses in the years that matter the most. (The only reason they matter the most is that the fewer you have left, the more precious they become.

The guy with the theatre cigar should not place his nasty, tongue-sucked substitute cigarette on the pool table. No one wants to put their hands on his saliva when they come to the table. That being said, he gets lots of encouragement from me to continue his winning ways (except for placing the saliva-soaked, fake cigarette on the pool table). Now if he can carry his own personal ashtray with him back and forth to the pool table and remove it every time he finishes his inning, I say let him enjoy his little show.

Everyone has to die from something, that's for sure but I sure wish I hadn't had all of those free cigarettes in the Corps as well as the inexpensive ones. (No tax on cigarettes purchased at military installations.) (They used to give you free cigarettes in your MRE's and those who didn't smoke would give you theirs.) To say that I wished I would have quit after I got out is an understatement. I guess I was too busy enjoying myself. :rolleyes:

Shoot, I can't even convince my only child to quit smoking so I'm not going to try to convince anyone else that they should quit. It's up to each person to work out their own salvation.

Dying isn't so bad. It's the long term suffering that sometimes goes along with it that really sucks. Smorgie shared that with me up close and personal.

Smoke if you like but try not to blow it in my direction. If you find me distancing myself from you when you are smoking, don't take it personally. I don't find you disgusting, uninteresting or repulsive and I'm not anti-social. I'm just trying to find a way to breathe a little easier and it's getting harder by the day.

My apologies for the detour of the thread.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roule!

JoeyA
 
Chris,
You've hit on one of the most important points about quitting smoking. I smoked between two and three back of Marlboro Reds for 27 years and I tried quitting several times and eventually went back to smoking each time. Finally, I woke up one night from a deep sleep and had to take a deep breath of air to feel normal. It was then that I realized I needed to quit smoking. It took a couple of tries with the nicotine patch but the second try stuck and I've been free of smoke for a little over ten years. It took about two years of complete abstinence for the urge to smoke to leave my body and mind. The periods of time that I didn't crave a cigarette increased with each month that I abstained and it is so for each person who decides to quit. :idea:

Unfortunately, a few years ago, I was diagnosed with COPD and since it is incurable I will just have to live with it and eventually die from it, sucking on inhalers a few times a day or worse. I've always been very active, jogging, lifting weights, even playing a few sports and for the most part enjoyed a very healthy life. Lately I haven't wanted to do much of that except for playing pool and I've added a few pounds unintentionally and that doesn't make my condition feel any better.

So now, just when I am in a position to enjoy life, I get to gasp for air for the rest of my life. There's no doubt that my COPD is related to my heavy smoking in my opinion and that of my doctors. I think I knew I had it even before that night I woke up looking for a breath of fresh air. I've just started a little exercise program and it seems to help somewhat, so I plan to continue with that.

I'm not writing this for sympathy and I don't want any pity. I was a stupid fcuck for starting in the first place and only slightly less stupid for not quitting sooner. The ironic thing is I never smoked until I went into the Marine Corps. Isn't that a bad joke?

The bottom line is when I used to smoke, I truly thought there would never be a day that I would wake up and not want and need a cigarette. I enjoyed smoking a lot or at least that's what I convinced myself. The truth is that cigarette smoking is just an addiction. The pleasure that you think you get from it is a perversion. Your body wasn't designed to inhale smoke. It doesn't perform well after it is heavily exposed to smoke for a long period of time. The body is tough and can take a lot of punishment so sometimes people can go long periods of time in abusing their lungs and suffer only mild illnesses and stinky clothes, bad breath and stained teeth. Yeah, it's every person's right to smoke and while there are a few that "seemingly" don't suffer any consequences for smoking an entire lifetime, there are hundreds of thousands who suffer from pulmonary illnesses in the years that matter the most. (The only reason they matter the most is that the fewer you have left, the more precious they become.

The guy with the theatre cigar should not place his nasty, tongue-sucked substitute cigarette on the pool table. No one wants to put their hands on his saliva when they come to the table. That being said, he gets lots of encouragement from me to continue his winning ways (except for placing the saliva-soaked, fake cigarette on the pool table). Now if he can carry his own personal ashtray with him back and forth to the pool table and remove it every time he finishes his inning, I say let him enjoy his little show.

Everyone has to die from something, that's for sure but I sure wish I hadn't had all of those free cigarettes in the Corps as well as the inexpensive ones. (No tax on cigarettes purchased at military installations.) (They used to give you free cigarettes in your MRE's and those who didn't smoke would give you theirs.) To say that I wished I would have quit after I got out is an understatement. I guess I was too busy enjoying myself. :rolleyes:

Shoot, I can't even convince my only child to quit smoking so I'm not going to try to convince anyone else that they should quit. It's up to each person to work out their own salvation.

Dying isn't so bad. It's the long term suffering that sometimes goes along with it that really sucks. Smorgie shared that with me up close and personal.

Smoke if you like but try not to blow it in my direction. If you find me distancing myself from you when you are smoking, don't take it personally. I don't find you disgusting, uninteresting or repulsive and I'm not anti-social. I'm just trying to find a way to breathe a little easier and it's getting harder by the day.

My apologies for the detour of the thread.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roule!

JoeyA


Joey,

Awesome post. I also am concerned that the damage from long term smoking will one day come back to haunt me. Like you, I'm doing what I can to make sure that what is left of my cardio-pulmonary system is as healthy as possible.

Even years after I quit (it's been about 10 years for me too) , I found I was still getting bronchitis after every cold. Doctors kept giving me antibiotics but I knew my lungs were still not healthy. I just thought it out and decided to start a running program to clear the airways. At first, it killed me. A few blocks and I was winded. Slowly I worked my way up to a mile, then 2, then 4 then 5. I haven't had bronchitis once since I started running about 5 years ago, and when I get a cold, if it goes to my chest, my lungs heal in a few days.

When I say that smoking was cool and glamorized while we were growing up - I really notice it now when I watch the old shows. One of the cable stations had a marathon Twilight Zone. I recorded them and was watching a bunch, the same ones we watched as kids in the early 1960's. There almost wasn't an episode where Rod Serling didn't have a cigarette in his hand. So I looked up Rod and guess what? He died of smoking related illness at 50. Fifty - does that suck or what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Serling

Yes, we were reckless for smoking. But as a society we were brainwashed by imagery to think smoking was cool. The evidence of this is overwhelming.

Chris
 
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I smoke so I can understand the need for nicotine.
However, if the light goes off on the cigar while someone is trying to shoot than your friend is sharking and should be forced to stop.
 
I've been playing the same pool hall in west Denver for 45 years. For the past couple years, a statewide smoking ban took hold and a few of us oldtimers had some difficulties playing without our nicotine crutch.

Recently one guy has been chewing Nicorette and playing with a fake cigar that lights up when it touches his tongue -- it's a device for actors on stage. But it allows this guy to play the same way he has since childhood, sucking on the tube, fooling around with his fingers, placing it on the table while it still appears to be burning, and then he shoots.

His game is back on track and he's beating the youngsters again. As you've already guessed, the pink-lunged crowd has decided that this behavior can't be tolerated. Why? you ask. Oh, it constitutes harassment, claim the pure-bred youngsters who think Redbull isn't a drug.

What's your call? No air is fouled; no laws are broken. This is about theater and nothing else. If you know pool, you know pool is about theater as much as cueing -- at least in some circles.

Anyone?



I am all for non smoking pool halls...but this is just stupid to me...its not a real cigar...who cares...tell the punks to either man up and play or go sit down and wet thier diapers.....
 
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